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Orders were given to prepare for the bloody campaign; and, burning with revenge at the recollection of former struggles, the flower of the Sardinian chivalry marched to the field of contest, determined, by one desperate effort, to wipe out the stain which the bravery of these mountaineers had affixed, in former times, on the standards of Savoy. It is to this sanguinary episode in their history, that our narrative refers.

On the evening of the 19th of April 1686, the Vaudois received the intelligence, that in two days they should have to choose between the alternatives, of submission to the Pope, or death. The dismal tidings came like a thunderbolt upon the peaceful peasantry. Their first impulse was a rush to arms. They retreated, with their wives and families, to their mountain fastnesses. Every cavern became a fortress-every rock a battlement; and for two days the bravest legions of Savoy trembled beneath a handful of cottage patriots. But at length, overpowered by numbers, they found themselves forced to resign the unequal contest; and on the stipulation that they should be allowed to evacuate their valleys in safety, they laid down their swords at the feet of the invaders. But they dearly paid for this act of submission. Their homes and sanctuaries were converted into dungeons, into which fourteen thousand innocent

captives were hurried, loaded with chains-their only companions, darkness, famine, torture, crime! The pen recoils from the task of recounting cruelties, too harrowing for tongue to tell-too horrible to be dragged to the light of day! The blood runs cold at the tale of innocent babes torn from the maternal breast, scalped before their parents' eyes, and their brains thrown into the trough as food for the dog: of burning pincers in the hands of the brutal soldiery, tearing the flesh, and piercing the vitals of the sufferers; boiling caldrons, the rack, and the wheel; flaming faggots; oil poured on the burning flesh, to prevent it roasting, so as to protract the agony; beds of straw in pestilential dungeons swarming with vermin, and in the heat of summer engendering loathsome diseases, which terminated in a slow, yet welcome death! After languishing for six months amid such sufferings, three thousand wretched survivors were all who remained to experience the sad clemency of exile from their native homes; and of these, alas! many perished, unpitied and unknown, among the dreary Alpine solitudes through which they were doomed to wander.

It was on the 17th of October that the exiles set out on their journey. Early in the morning, little groups were seen wending their way up such of the narrow glens and rocky steeps as appeared

to be attended with least peril and fatigue. Even in this, one of the darkest hours of their history, Heaven seemed to cast a propitious smile on the outcasts. The sun rose in unclouded splendour— his beams gilding the whole range of Alps and Appenines, as with burnished gold. Many were the fond and lingering looks which these pious mountaineers cast behind them, on the scenes of loveliness they were about to leave, and which seemed to be endeared to them a thousand-fold, under the bitter consciousness, that to these abodes of innocence and peace, the homes of their childhood, the graves of their forefathers, they were now to bid farewell, in all probability, for ever!

But although driven from their fold, the great Shepherd of Israel had not deserted his chosen flock. The torch of the Reformation had now, for more than half a century, been kindled in Switzerland, and was burning with undiminished lustre. A safe asylum was thrown open for the fugitives, among the Alps of Berne, or on the shores of Geneva; and thither, with hearts uplifted to a reigning Providence, the pilgrim wanderers bent their steps.

Ere the sun had gained the meridian, on the day to which we refer, the more active of the exiles had surmounted the toilsome Alpine ascents, and bivouacked for the night, on the opposite side of

the mountain. Many of the weaker and more feeble, had been destined never to see the light of another sun; they either found a cold sepulchre amid the snows, or preferred to retrace their steps, and perish with their innocent babes, in the flames that consumed their cottages and hamlets.

As the day was drawing to a close, and the sun rapidly sinking in the west, a solitary family wound their way up the rugged path of the Col de la Croix. Their ascent lay along the foaming waters of the Pelice, a rapid torrent which skirts the base of the mountain, and which, after being lashed into fury by a hundred cataracts, in its precipitous course from the valley above, glides softly along the beauteous vale of Lucerna.

The tottering step of the old man, who formed the centre of the group, explained the cause of their lingering. His white flowing locks told the tale of many winters. His eye, though sunk, still retained much of its natural vivacity, and the resigned expression which was seated on his countenance, bespoke that he was the expectant of a nobler than earthly heritage, and that he was only waiting the call of his Master, that he might, like the aged Simeon, "depart in peace!" He leaned for support on his two companions, the only surviving props of his declining days, the one a son about eighteen years old, and whose countenance told

shrunk from contemplating, and which had condemned an aged father to be the nightly tenant of a naked solitude, which, in all likelihood, would prove his grave, A relentless foe was behindthreatening tempests, and unknown paths, spread terror before them, Courageous and intrepid above many of his equals, his young spirit sunk under the appalling prospect. He burst into a flood of poignant grief, and, unbefriended by all but Heaven, he and the desolate heart that shared his anguish, mingled their prayers and tears together to that God, whom the orphan and the fatherless never supplicate in vain,

"Hush, hush, my children," said the old man, who was roused from a few moments of troubled repose, by the sobs of those who were seated at his side, Woop not for me, but weep for them who have hosped such woes on the inocent and madiending. These hoary looks can be as safely amit, the calà snows of an Alpine grave, ss mår BÀ DI CAL, sois of Villan, kawki i wel mijd dreamed of a boucher and caìmer evening any ar's, hun zemra ( mx 1 szil vs 1 uweler is wrdy vhod inves 14 CORE 1 SUL VIC) ŠNORS në gatting

•Caress imter,” siu. Staphay singiling vùn the core of gref 3 schol hs filing hot, mai Rosemarir give Ar be an u

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